The Clark County School District spent over $13,000 this year to discuss the child sex-education advocacy program that made headlines when it was reported that the district was considering teaching masturbation to Kindergartners.

In an apparent attempt to skirt Nevada’s transparency laws, the Nevada Public Employees’ Retirement System has released the Social Security numbers and other identifying information of over 100 current and retired Silver State judges.

Plan was to ‘impact’ individuals throughout community, school district; allegedly skirt parents

LAS VEGAS — The Clark County School District spent over $13,000 this year to discuss the child sex-education advocacy program that made headlines when it was reported that the district was considering teaching masturbation to Kindergartners.

The amount CCSD spent on the program led by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) comes from documents released by CCSD in response to public-record requests.

Over $9,750 went to pay SIECUS to provide “professional facilitation” in multiple CCSD focus groups, according to two purchase orders. Printed materials for the events cost another $3,328.

Jail-house phone call: “My mom’s going to go to jail now.”

LAS VEGAS — A Clark County School District police dispatcher who’s been named a defendant in the Angela Peterson wrongful death lawsuit was transferred out of her police department post Friday.

According to multiple sources, employees of the department received an email notice — "effective immediately" — stating Tina Zuniga is "no longer an active employee of the Clark County School District Police Department," and "should be afforded the same access and courtesy to CCSDPD facilities as would be extended to a visitor."

While Zuniga will "continue to be an active member of the Clark County School District," sources say, employees were asked not to communicate with Zuniga in the future regarding any official matter considered confidential by the district's police department.

Zuniga's transfer comes after what appears to be a recording of a 2011 jail-house phone call was submitted to school police internal affairs.

District investigation underway

LAS VEGAS — Has one of the Clark County School District’s department honchos found a way to eat taxpayer cake in two separate states at the same time?

It appears so.

In Southern Nevada, for nearly 12 years, Bramby Tollen was the director of CCSD’s purchasing and warehouse department. Then this March, according to district officials, she was transferred to the CCSD human resources department as an “Administrator on Special Assignment” — while continuing to earn a base salary of $104,760 a year, plus $1,800 annually for longevity.

Tollen’s total pay and benefits for the 2013 calendar year were $140,663.82, according to CCSD information on Transparent Nevada.

However, as of June 13, Snohomish County, Washington, has had a new purchasing manager — also named Bramby Tollen.

Nothing comes before the school board, but CCSD’s legal department is well over budget

LAS VEGAS — The Clark County School District Office of General Counsel has an annual budget exceeding $3 million and a legal team of 10 attorneys, nine secretarial and clerical staff, plus one administrator.

Part of that $3 million each year is $500,000 allocated for the hiring of additional, outside attorneys.

Nevertheless, in the last three school years the office has exceeded its outside-counsel budget and has paid out over $2.1 million to 10 private law firms. Of that, over $1.2 million went to two firms — Greenberg-Traurig, and Lewis and Roca (now Lewis Roca Rothgerber), according to CCSD records reviewed by Nevada Journal.

For this school year, the CCSD legal office is some $179,000 over its legal services budget.

LAS VEGAS — The annual independent audit of the Nevada Public Employees Retirement System’s financials will be conducted by a firm that recently agreed to pay a city in Illinois $35 million after it failed to notice that the city’s comptroller had embezzled nearly $54 million from taxpayers over the 20 years during which the firm was conducting independent audits.

In February, Nevada’s Public Employees’ Retirement Board voted unanimously to award a $113,500 contract to CliftonLarsonAllen, LLP, to audit the financials of the state Public Employees’ Retirement System, Legislative Retirement System and Judicial Retirement System for the current fiscal year.

The vote came just months after CliftonLarsonAllen settled a civil lawsuit with the city of Dixon, Illinois. The suit was over the firm’s acknowledged failure to notice that a high-ranking city official had been stealing from city coffers for years, forcing the small municipality to cut public services and lay-off employees.

Over 800 data points now collected on each Nevada public, charter school student

LAS VEGAS — Would you like to see the information the State of Nevada is keeping on your child?

You may have to take out a loan.

The State Department of Education recently notified one Washoe County parent it would cost him more than $10,000.

When John Eppolito, a parent of four, asked to view the information the state is warehousing on his children, he was informed that "the Department’s Director of Information Technology… has estimated that the cost will be approximately $10,194."

LAS VEGAS — The deeper meaning of data on TransparentNevada, the searchable database of government employee salaries provided by NPRI as a public service, is going to become more accessible, according to Victor Joecks, the Institute’s executive vice president.

In the seven years of the website’s existence, said Joecks, TransparentNevada.com has given the public unprecedented access to government compensation information, and, along the way, exposed compensation packages inflated by excessive overtime, sick leave/vacation sell backs and salary and benefit packages far out of line with the private sector.

Now, starting with the four biggest Southern Nevada government entities, NPRI is providing the public with different ways to examine and compare government compensation spending.

It originated, not in a fear of railroads, but of politicians and crony capitalism

LAS VEGAS — It’s long been agreed in Nevada that the state constitution’s prohibition against state subsidies to private business means just what it says:

The State shall not donate or loan money, or its credit, subscribe to or be, interested in the Stock of any company, association, or corporation, except corporations formed for educational or charitable purposes.

Moreover, Nevada voters have made their own view emphatically clear: Three times — in 1992, 1996 and 2000 — they’ve rejected lawmaker-sponsored ballot measures to change the state constitution and allow such subsidies.

But have Silver State lawmakers and the Sandoval administration now found a successful end-run around the clearly expressed will of the voters?

What gives? Corporate subsidy program rife with confusion, lack of procedures

LAS VEGAS — With much ado and fanfare, Nevada public officials have aggressively touted subsidies from the state’s $10 million Catalyst Fund incentive program to numerous companies that say they will expand in or relocate to Nevada.

Despite the publicity, however, signed agreements for nearly $7.1 million in committed Catalyst Fund monies do not yet exist and exactly how the Catalyst Fund money flows remains hidden from public view.

The 2011 Nevada Legislature created the Fund as a discretionary grant program to subsidize private businesses that expand in or relocate to Nevada. It is administered by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, known as “GOED.”

From March to September 2013, the GOED board — chaired by Gov. Brian Sandoval, with members including Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, Secretary of State Ross Miller and others —designated nine private companies to receive nearly $5.7 million in state Catalyst Fund grants. Through Jan. 28, 2014, officials insisted to Nevada Journal that signed agreements for those nine awards did not exist. Only when faced with this publication’s deadline did GOED produce one signed agreement for $200,000.

Late in 2013, GOED approved two more subsidy packages totaling more than $1.6 million. Again, no signed agreements exist.